The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged that they had covertly funded a project with US auto makers for the past five years, whereby the auto makers were installing black box voice recorders in four-wheel drive pickup trucks in an effort to determine, in fatal accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash.

They were surprised to find that in 44 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 93.5 percent of fatal crashes were, "Oh, S**T!" Only the states of Oklahoma, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama and Texas were different. In those states, 89.3 percent of the final words were: "Hold my beer and watch this."

When you wish upon a falling star, your dreams can come true. Unless it's really a meteorite hurtling to the Earth which will destroy all life. Then you're pretty much hosed no matter what you wish for. Unless it's death by meteor.

Actually there are numerous sensors in every motor vehicle made that record some form of data. Where they are and exactly what they record is considered an "industry secret." This was ostenstiably to gather crash data for r/d of safer vehicles, but data of this type has been eneterd into open court to deflect liability by automakers in high profile cases. I will try to find the case citation, but there was a wrongfull death suit against an SUV manufacturer that alleged the design of the car contributed to the person's death. The auto manufacturer was able to use 'black box' data to prove that the vehicle was being operated at high speed and that the person did not have thier seatbelt on when the accident occured. Based on this the auto manufacturer subsequently had a significant reduction in the amount of damages they had to pay.

*** The opinions expressed herein are uniquely MY OWN and should not be construed as an endorsement of any sort by my employers or of any professional associations to which I hold membership. I can dig myself into holes just fine without their help, thank you very much***